smashed one of those ridges with her sail, damaging her periscopes or
satellite-communication gear.
The gamble had paid off, however, when the torpedoes had stopped
tracking the Typhoon and started homing on one of those ridges.
Probably, the lead torpedo had exploded on the ice, and the shock wave
had thrown the second into the ice as well. In any case, Revolutsita
was unharmed.
And now, Dobrynin had become the hunter, and the Americans the prey.
CHAPTER 19
Sunday, 15 March
1540 hours (Zulu +2)
Control room/attack center
U.S.S. Galveston
Galveston’s well-trained crew reacted with drilled efficiency and a
complete lack of wasted motion. Rubber masks on hoses dropped from the
overhead like the emergency apparatus aboard a 747 losing cabin
pressure. The control room crew calmly strapped on the dangling masks
and kept to their posts as men with fire extinguishers doused the small
electrical fire. The compartment’s blowers were still operational, and
the air cleared rapidly.
“Mr. Paulson!” Montgomery yelled, his voice muffled somewhat by his
mask.
“What’s our damage?”
“Nothing too bad, Skipper! Dinged the sail, port side. Fire in the aux
comm circuitry, under control. Minor casualties, bumps and bruises …”
“Okay! Sonar! This is the Captain. Can you hear anything yet?”
“Still awfully fuzzy, Captain,” Ekhart’s voice came back. “We’ve got
echoes off the ice and bottom. Might be fifteen minutes before we get a
clear sweep. And, sir …”
“Yes?”
“Captain, I think we’ve lost one flank array. We’re deaf to port.”
“Okay. Stay on it. If anyone can hear that bastard through the crap,
it’s you!”
“Aye, sir.”
Think like the enemy! Montgomery told himself. And who was the enemy?
A sub driver, like him. A captain first rank, most likely, for one of
their biggest and finest vessels, or even an admiral.
No, not an admiral. That clever bastard had dived, turned away from the
Mark 48s, then suckered them into the ice, as slippery-slick as sex.
The guy had balls … and the maneuver suggested he did this for a
living, not as a reward for years of faithful service to the Motherland.
Okay, so he was a working captain, and he knew how to use the ice as
cover against torpedo attack. He also knew he would have to find and
kill the American attack sub before the attack sub was able to take
another shot. The Russian’s sonars would be deafened for the moment; he
wouldn’t know how badly Galveston’s ears had been singed, so he’d assume
Galveston still had fully operational sonar.
He would turn onto a reciprocal course to the torpedoes, running
straight down the track toward Galveston’s position. He’d be coming
fast, to cover the distance before Gal could recover her hearing, and he
would be skimming as close to the ice as he dared just in case she could
hear him, making use of the confused echoes still bouncing back and
forth between ice and bottom to mask the noise of her engines. He might
dump noisemakers too, just to keep things lively.
“Diving Officer!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Make our depth two hundred feet. Helm, come to zero-zero-five. Make
our speed dead slow. Just enough to maintain way.”
“Two hundred feet, aye, aye, Captain.”
“Coming now to zero-zero-five, speed three knots.”
Montgomery took his place at the search periscope. “Up scope!”
1610 hours
Control room/attack center
Slavnyy Oktyabrskaya Revolutsita
Where is he?
That question had been weighing on Dobrynin’s mind for nearly half an
hour now. If the American had continued his approach at five or ten
knots, the Typhoon should have met it by now. The echoes in the water
were dying away at last, and the sonar officer reported clear water.
But no American sub. The bastard couldn’t simply make himself
invisible!
“Slow to one third,” he said. “Sonar! Anything?”
“No, Comrade Captain. It is possible the American turned away after his
torpedoes went active, and left the area.”
“Hmm. Possible. But not likely. This American submarine captain, he
is very good. He crept up on us like a wolf on a reindeer. I somehow
doubt he went to so much trouble simply to loose two torpedoes, then run
away again.”
But Dobrynin was faced with another decision, and as he made it, he was